33rpm vs 45rpm - which is better

The quality of the 45 RPM speaks for itself. Why on earth would anyone spend more money and go through the hassle of dealing with four sides to listen to one album if the quality wasn't better? Joe

baylinor,

I agree.  I rarely buy 45s because of the inconvenience of flipping sides.  Then again, I don't play that much vinyl because I am too lazy for even that.  With many recordings, the originals are better than the audiophile reissue, perhaps because the master tape has deteriorated over the years.  But, with a lot of great music, it is pretty hard to get originals, and the cost is prohibitive.  If we were limited to buying only originals, so few of us would have access to Bluenote recordings.  

I do have fun shocking people with some original recordings that demonstrate how the art of recording has NOT improved in the last 60+ years.  I can put on a 1959 Columbia Brubeck "Time Out" or Ellington's "Blues in Orbit" to show that even stereo was fantastic way back in time.  Both recordings have had audiophile reissues, none quite match the originals.

Sorry, this isn't to suggest that 7 inch 45rpm's sound better than 33.3 LP's They do not. Joe

If you can find the same recording pressed in both 33 and 45 and engineered by the same recording engineer, I would get them both to use as a simple evaluation tool for zenith error. Sonic differences between the two speeds are certainly minimized when zenith error is eliminated and the stylus contact edges are tracing in a collinear fashion with the radial line of the record  

The test works by identifying the track on the 33 RPM record that plays at the inner null point area.  Listen to that area of the record (+/-5mm) and then find that same musical passage on the 45 record, regardless of where it is on the record. If you hear a significant difference between them in high frequency extension, dynamics, soundstage size, image specificity and overall coherence/intelligibility of the music then it is SUGGESTIVE of a misalignment of the contact edges of your stylus contact edges relative to your cantilever. (Industry tolerance for two out of the three stylus/cantilever assembly manufacturers is +/-5°.) Go back to your 33rpm playing selection and begin playing with the rotation of the cartridge in the headshell. This can be quite a tedious process without something like the WallyZenith to make changes repeatable and controllable, but it is doable. 

Of course, conical and elliptical stylii need not apply for this process. I’m also critical of Shibata profiles not behaving like fine line contact profiles. I’m not sure whether this subjective approach to finding proper zenith alignment is even practicable with a Shibata as the entire front half of the stylus is conical and therefore is induced into the same type of pinch effect errors (albeit at half the frequency) as conical styli. Add to that it’s curved contact profile which now behaves more like an elliptical contact edge, etc., etc.

@wallytools ,Hey, I brought home an old medical binocular microscope. I'm going to do some surgery with a cut-off tool and start modifications using it's stage and heavy bottom structure.